Volume 23, Number 14 · September 16, 1976
The Disenchanted
By D.J. Enright
The Farewell Party
by Milan Kundera, translated by Peter Kussi
Knopf, 209 pp., $7.95
At the outset this new novel by the Czech writer sounds much like a bedroom farce. A famous jazz trumpeter, Klima, is a confirmed womanizer deeply in love with his wife. 'That's my erotic secret, which most people find completely incomprehensible.' His affairs, he says, are pursued solely for the sake of the rebound, 'that wonderful return flight toward my wife.' Ruzena, a nurse at a spa celebrated for its gynecological miracles, calls Klima to say that as a result of a one-night stand (when the trumpeter was playing at the spa) she is pregnant by him. Pregnancy is in a different category from philandering and wonderful return flights, so Klima hares off to persuade her to have an abortion. The next few days see a fair amount of bed-hopping.
Review, 1702 words
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